Yesterday the Anglican Environmental Network spokesman, Bishop Browning, tried to equate the various Sabbaths in scripture and environmental concern. As one who has studied the Sabbaths, I was intrigued.

But, what the good bishop said was nothing but nonsense. He must have studied theology from the back of a cornflakes packet!

He said that an ‘ideal human society’ ‘must address rapidly growing inequity... and confront an economic system which operates as if resources are infinite... (and there is) an unfolding ecological crisis.”

Hm. I have read this kind of childish stuff over several years. The Green movement is crammed to the gills with it! And it is fake. There is no ‘ecological crisis’ except in the minds of Marxist greens (including some Christians), and how would the bishop and ‘religious’ greens oppose what Christ said about inequality? He said that the poor are with us always. He then said (in effect) that we must get on with His work and forget trying to right inequality! Scripture does not call us to get rid of capitalism, because it is one of the best economic models we have. But, socialists want to take the hard-earned cash from workers and give it to people who don’t work! You won’t find that idea coming from Christ!

The bishop went on to say that we should link “the roots and meaning” of Sabbath so that we can “reconnect economics to ethics... So that it is consistent with the creation upon which it depends.” Guess what, bishop, I have also studied economics! It is just garbage to link the Sabbath to economics! And which ‘sabbath’ are you referring to? There are many in the scriptures, but your use of the capital ‘S’ implies the seventh day Sabbath, Sunday. Now THIS Sabbath is connected to Creation, because God instituted it as a day of rest when He finished making everything. But there is no connection to economics, unless you are green, in which case you feel entitled to twist any scripture you wish! See my book on the ‘Green Bible’.

The bishop then includes the idea that God did NOT finish His creation, but allowed it to continue to be created. This is another old chestnut without any basis. He says that the seventh day Sabbath “has the capacity to change behaviour and life style.” What gobbledygook!! He also links the Sabbath to “environmental well being”. What? Eh? He makes it even more weird by saying that while the principles of the Sabbath do not change, how we interpret it DOES change with every age.

What on earth is he gabbling about? It makes no sense, biblically or theologically. It is semantics on steroids! The principle is that we rest on the seventh day. The ‘interpretation’ is – we rest on the seventh day! Wake up, bishop! Then comes the crowning glory of the bishop’s garbage: “The Kingdom of God is the celebration of Sabbath economics, of generous hospitality and sacrificial compassion, of investment in all that builds community, and the rejection of amassing fortunes in barns.”

As any true believer knows, the kingdom of God is the spiritual rule of Christ. What are ‘sabbath economics’?

What has a day of rest to do with ‘generous hospitality’? Or ‘sacrificial compassion’? Or the making of personal wealth? I would be most happy to challenge the good bishop on his interpretation of scripture, but I doubt if he would understand what I was saying.

TODAY... Hate Crime Nonsense

This time, today, it was the turn of the head honcho himself, the archbishop! As always he made another mess.

He said that no civilised society should have ‘hate crimes’. Can you guess what this refers to?

Instead of hate crimes we should show “dignity to all” and that no religious belief can justify NOT showing this dignity. He said that “God values each of us infinitely”. So we must combat hate crime and prejudice. I agree that there should be no ‘hate crime’ in the sense of physically attacking others for whatever reason.

But he includes homosexuals in this general title. God hates what homosexuals do, which He calls an abomination.

And He says they will not enter Heaven because they are wicked. What they do with each other removes dignity, so any lack of it is their own fault. It is because society has lost sight of these facts that great wickedness is spreading across the whole world, darkening the souls of men and killing them with foul diseases! I have argued with the archbishop (and his predecessors), but they have a distinct warped logic that is divorced from God’s word.